WHERE IS BELLE GUINNESS?

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 174, 14 July 1908, Page 4

WHERE IS BELLE GUINNESS?

HAS SHE ESCAPED TO NEW ZEALAND, A TALK OF HORROR. Has Widow Belle Cuinncss, Die murderer of twenty people, who il was at first supposed was incinerated with her three eliildreu when her home was burned down, to Australia or Sew Zealand-; This question is being asked by the big newspapers of America, while the police stick to the theory that the woman lost her life when ne'r homestead was destroyed. -No tale ever told by Edgar AllaMPoe, the past-master in retailing horrors, ranks with the revelations concerning the Widow (junuess's "house of death'' on the outskirts of Laportc, Indiana! The woman attracted so many men' there by the lure of matrimonial advertisements, and then killed them, that. , the place has been fancifully called "the port of missing men." She advertised for a man with money to join a woman with property. The. ■advertisement concluded thus:—"iVo replies by letter considered unless Bender is willing to follow answer with personal visit." Numerous letters now in the hands of |I H . polico show tint she received hundreds of replies to n-r altrnclivcly baited advertisements, and that bo a large number of men olic wrote, urging flu.-ni to convert'their property into cash, and conn' and nellle | on her large farm, which the combined capital would make very valuable. She lured many victims through the mails. Twenty bodies have been dug •up around her bouse, and it is expected more will be recovered. In her house of death, with the bodies of her slain around her very doorstep, she gave dances, and held riotous parties. Finally tliis high priestess of murder was either burned to death by one of her victims, who is now under arrest, or she lias escaped over the seas. It will take some time to determine whether she is alive or dead. It is true that the body of a headless woman was found in the ruins after the conflagration—the only female body, except that of her young daughter, among the score dug up from beneath the charnel house. It is pointed out, however, that the night before the fire a trunk believed to have contained bodies was received at the h'Ouse. There may have been the slain body of a headless woman in that trunk, to be left as a ruse._ With a score"of human bodies and skeletons already dug out of the ground it is a generally accepted fact that Mrs (iunness took every step possible to prevent recognition of her victims. Every body so far recovered was dismembered before it was thrust into its grave. People from all over the conntry are reporting to the J.aporte authorities of missing male relatives, but identification is proving very difficult, if not practically impossible. The woman buried the legs of one man in the same hole as the body of another, and vice versa. She thrust in a quantity! of quicklime, and over all she put a heavy covering of cement. That she must have had an accomplice seems evident, but no clues point that way. The man arrested. Hay Lampheer by name, is claimed by the police to have been her assistant. They say they have proof thatfke helped her to dismember the bodies. Lampheer asserts that instead of aiding the voman she conspired with one of the men now dead to put him out of the way.

Coming as a final commentary on the woman's iiendishness—or possibly it is to !■? construed as a final act of contrition and atonement for her wicked-ness-is the will of the widow thinness. She leaves her'fortune to an orphans' home in Chicago! Although tier crimes were principally committed f"r money, she leaves but ' £3OOO. But, having murdered only she herself knows, how many fathcrs'of children, she bequeaths that money to orphans. ft is a month since the. lire occurcd ( in the house, but it is only now that the real hideousness of the matter is being brought out in detail. The newspapers of the country printed only a. few lines last mouth about the burning,

and the supposition that 31rs Ounness and three children had been burned to death. When the authorities searched the ruins the day after the conflagration, they came" across the headless body id a woman. It was at once evident that a crime had' been eommited, and l!ay Lamphecr, a farm hand, who had been working about, tins place, was arrested.

Still the affair attracted little atlcntion. 'J'lii' searchers among the ruins widened their sphere of operations, ami started to clig in the yard about the buildings. TJien they came upon the remains of several men. The Mires flash the news of the great crime all over the country, and since then the Laporto mystery has been, the reigning sensation in the United. Slates. But even then there was the faintest .sugestion. that the widow Gmvncss was the arch, criminal. She was look,ed upon the victim of Lampheer. Seeing the accounts in the papers, relatives of a* man named 0, B. Binlsher;*. of T.ola, Winseonsin, wrote to Laporic asking if one, of the bodies was, perr «hance, that of the man named. They said lie had gone to see. the woman in answer In a matrimonial advertisement. That was the first suggestion •of the fad that the widow ran a marriage bureau. As several such bureaux 'have been examined «f late, and have been shown to be hotbeds of >niquity, the police ' were quick to act on the due. Ajiii I then the whole dreadful story came out. One who knew I'udsbcrg visited Laporto and saw the bodies. He said 1 that one resembled—as nearly as a i|uiek-linie eaten, long-buried bfidy could be said to resemble a man—JSiulJ sberg. I It was next learned from the local bank that on April 0, ISIO7, Budsberg had visited the. establishment, in company with widow dullness and cashed a cheque for £2OO, the proceeds of a mortgage he had sold at the Farmers' State Bank of Lola. The authorities were now convinced that they had on their bands a crime of vast proportions, and they announced all over the country that they would give, si reward of £ IOOO for the ca-pt.ure of Mrs Unnncss. They also declared that they would give a like amount for full proof that the body found in the ruins of the' burned house was that of the mnrder-

To-day a report comes: from Lnporte that they are convinced that th<« bones of the missing head of the womnif have been uncovered amid the debris. They dcclare Hint the gold from the teeth prove this, and also that rings found on the bands of the woman, bear out the belief. The coroner's jury, however, which is still wrestling- with the mvslerv. is still Ihought to be unconvinced.'and il i- stated Hint an open lerdicl will be decided on. l'/,ir«c numbers of | pie still adhere fit the <onvietion that the woman has escaped across /the Pacific.